Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A Critical Appraisal of Karl Olivecrona's Legal PhilosophyAxel Hägerström’s Legal Philosophy: An Overview

A Critical Appraisal of Karl Olivecrona's Legal Philosophy: Axel Hägerström’s Legal Philosophy:... [Olivecrona’s legal philosophy reflects the influence of the Uppsala school of philosophy, especially as put forward by Axel Hägerström. Hägerström developed his legal philosophy on a foundation consisting of ontological naturalism and a non-cognitivist meta-ethics. He was, more specifically, an ontological, but not a semantic or a methodological, naturalist, and there are actually also traces in his meta-ethical writings of so-called error theories of rights judgments and moral judgments, respectively. Hägerström devoted the bulk of his writings in legal philosophy to a comprehensive and thorough critique of will theories of law, but he also analyzed the concept of a declaration of intention, the concept of a right, and the concept of duty. In addition, he offered an interesting explanation of the tendency of judges, lawyers, and others to ascribe binding force to legal rules. And even though he did not put forward a positive account of the concept of law, he did maintain that law can be conceived of as a social machine in which human beings are the cogs. His defense of a non-cognitivist meta-ethics is a constructive effort, however, and it is arguably—together with the critique of will theories of law—his most important contribution to legal philosophy. Although this chapter aims at presenting Hägerström’s legal philosophy, not assessing it, it does include some critical remarks on parts of it.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Critical Appraisal of Karl Olivecrona's Legal PhilosophyAxel Hägerström’s Legal Philosophy: An Overview

Download PDF
23 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/a-critical-appraisal-of-karl-olivecrona-s-legal-philosophy-axel-h-VD8KHRLScF
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
ISBN
978-3-319-06166-5
Pages
45 –68
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-06167-2_4
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Olivecrona’s legal philosophy reflects the influence of the Uppsala school of philosophy, especially as put forward by Axel Hägerström. Hägerström developed his legal philosophy on a foundation consisting of ontological naturalism and a non-cognitivist meta-ethics. He was, more specifically, an ontological, but not a semantic or a methodological, naturalist, and there are actually also traces in his meta-ethical writings of so-called error theories of rights judgments and moral judgments, respectively. Hägerström devoted the bulk of his writings in legal philosophy to a comprehensive and thorough critique of will theories of law, but he also analyzed the concept of a declaration of intention, the concept of a right, and the concept of duty. In addition, he offered an interesting explanation of the tendency of judges, lawyers, and others to ascribe binding force to legal rules. And even though he did not put forward a positive account of the concept of law, he did maintain that law can be conceived of as a social machine in which human beings are the cogs. His defense of a non-cognitivist meta-ethics is a constructive effort, however, and it is arguably—together with the critique of will theories of law—his most important contribution to legal philosophy. Although this chapter aims at presenting Hägerström’s legal philosophy, not assessing it, it does include some critical remarks on parts of it.]

Published: Jun 18, 2014

Keywords: Legal System; Moral Judgment; Legal Rule; Error Theory; Natural Entity

There are no references for this article.